SC smoothens path of dance bars in Maharashtra: 5 reasons we need to hail the verdict
On January 17, the Supreme Court smoothened the way for dance bars to function in Mumbai, by doing away with some of the strict rules the Maharashtra government had imposed on such establishments.
The recent verdict thwarts the state’s third attempt at clamping down on dance bars.
The Maharashtra government, under the Congress-NCP, first ordered the shutting of dance bars in 2005. This was challenged, and the Supreme Court in 2013 allowed the establishments to reopen. In 2014, the government came up with a law banning dance bars, which was again stayed by the court in 2015.
A year later, the government, now run by the BJP, came up with the Dance Bar Regulation Bill, 2016 — provisions of which have been struck down on January 17.
No dance bar has been granted licence to operate in the state since 2005. The new laws were so strict that most establishments would fail in sticking to all the provisions, and punishments for violating them were stringent.
While moral outrage against the SC verdict has already begun on social media, here are 5 reasons why it’s a progressive step:
1.) Protects livelihoods
When dance bars were first outlawed in 2005, in Mumbai alone, 75,000 women were employed as dancers, with many being the only breadwinners of their family. When the establishments shut down, these women were left with no legal source of income. Asa many as 40% of them drifted into prostitution, others to the porn industry. And it was not just the dancers, the bars employed men as waiters and bouncers — about 40,000 of them — all left jobless.
2.) Illegal bars exploited women more
The ban and subsequent strict laws didn’t wipe out dance bars — they pushed them underground. The establishments continued to function — but illegally, which meant there was no legal regulation or supervision of how they were working. This only made the women working there more vulnerable to exploitation. Working in legal establishments will ensure dignity, and a degree of protection, to these women.
3.) Govt’s job is to police — not moral police
It is not the state government’s job to worry about the welfare of our soul. Its job is to uphold law and order. The reasons propounded by the government to ban dance bars included these being ‘a bad moral influence’.
Its focus should have been cracking down on the ‘illegal activities’ the government claimed the bars promoted, not appointing itself the state’s moral guardian. Banning is a lazy way out of the more onerous task of regulating.
4.) The verdict keeps in mind dancers’ dignity
The court has ruled that no CCTV cameras will be allowed inside the bars, and customers, while they can tip the dancers, cannot shower cash on them.
This is very important — the verdict spells out that every job deserves dignity, and everyone, from the state down to the consumer, needs to keep this in mind.
The CCTV recordings on bars were a violation of the privacy of both the customer and the performer. The distinction between tipping and ‘throwing money’ marks the distinction of the dancer as any other working professional, or as a dehumanised sex object.
5.) Revenue
The bars also added crores to the states’ coffers, which the government lost out on by outlawing them. In 2013, Anil Gaikwad, legal adviser for the Indian Hotel and Restaurant Owners’ Association, had said: “For eight years in a row, the state lost an annual Rs 3,000 crore that it had earned from dance bars.”
The Maharashtra government is cash-strapped — it can ill-afford to look down on such revenue.
It's time the government did what it is supposed to: govern the state, and look after law and order.
People can look after their own spiritual welfare.